ANTHROPOLOGIST IS ACCUSED OF USING GRANT TO BUY HEROIN
FOR RESEARCH SUBJECTS

A City University of New York anthropologist who studies drug use was
charged Monday with embezzling money from a federal grant to buy
heroin for research subjects. The professor was also accused of using
heroin while he was conducting a government-financed study of the drug
and of misusing grant money for personal expenses.

After a two-year investigation, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the
Southern District of New York brought charges in federal court against
Ansley Hamid, an associate professor of anthropology at CUNY's John
Jay College of Criminal Justice. Mr. Hamid, who has taught at John Jay
for 15 years and has written extensively about drug culture and the
use of crack cocaine, did not enter a plea. After surrendering his
passport, he was released on $25,000 bond.

The trouble began in June 1996, when Mr. Hamid received a $2.6-million
grant from the Department of Health and Human Services for a project
called "Heroin in the 21st Century." The purpose of the project: "to
track the developmental cycle of heroin use in New York City from 1995
to 2000."

According to the government, Mr. Hamid gave $100 of the grant money to
an assistant with instructions to buy 10 bags of heroin. The professor
told his assistant that "he had junkies coming in from Connecticut to
be interviewed for the project, and that Hamid was going to compensate
them for their participation with heroin," the complaint said.

Law-enforcement officials also accused Mr. Hamid of using heroin while
he was the principal investigator for the project. According to the
complaint, Mr. Hamid's field notes contain a reference to his
"month-long experiment" with heroin use. A government witness
confronted Mr. Hamid with the notes, and says that the professor
admitted that he had, indeed, tried heroin while working on the project.

In addition to the drug charges, Mr. Hamid stands accused of
embezzling money to pay for travel and equipment unrelated to his
research. The grant was supposed to cover the local travel expenses of
Mr. Hamid's research team, as well as excursions to professional
conferences. But according to the government, Mr. Hamid used more than
$6,500 in federal funds to pay for trips to 46lorida, Hawaii, and
Trinidad. None of those trips, the complaint said, had anything to do
with Mr. Hamid's project.

The government also accused Mr. Hamid of using grant money to pay
research assistants a total of $21,200 for work they did on book
manuscripts unrelated to his project. Plus, the government said, the
professor spent more than $2,000 of federal money on stereo equipment
and compact disks.

The charges carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a
$250,000 fine.

Mr. Hamid could not be reached for comment, but he denied all of the
allegations in an interview with The New York Times. He accused his
colleagues of cooking up the charges against him because they were
envious of his professional success.

The allegation that he used federal money to buy heroin for research
subjects is "a total lie," Mr. Hamid told the Times. "No heroin user
would go for a deal like that. You can always get heroin. What is
scarce is money." As for the admission in his field notes that he had
experimented with heroin, Mr. Hamid said: "Field notes are
confidential. People often put things in them that are not true."

The professor was equally emphatic when asked about the
compact-disk purchases, which included recordings by Abba,
Mariah Carey, the Jackson Five, Whitney Houston, the Spice
Girls, and Louis Armstrong. The music was relevant to his
project, Mr. Hamid told the Times: "There is an uncanny
correspondence between styles of music and different types of
drug use -- between the Rastafarians and reggae, between Miles
Davis and Dexter Gordon and be-bop and heroin. They are tightly related."

Mr. Hamid's legal troubles landed him in hot water with John Jay, too.
Two weeks after the allegations surfaced, in 1997, the college removed
Mr. Hamid from the research project and reassigned him to the
classroom. John Jay investigated the misconduct allegations against
Mr. Hamid and found them to be "credible," the college said in a statement.

Last November, the professor filed a discrimination complaint against
the college with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The
complaint has since been dismissed. In January, the institution
suspended Mr. Hamid, and "the college is looking to get rid of him,"
says Jerry Capeci, a John Jay spokesman.

Mr. Hamid's research on heroin use is continuing at John Jay, albeit
under a new principal investigator. "Mr. Hamid's arrest yesterday has
no effect, in our view, on the project, since he hasn't been part of
it for nearly two years," Mr. Capeci said.